Chapter 4: Interlude 1, The Message
Year 500 P.R. Empire outreaches. Archid system. Drucyn: dragon forest essence geyser.
Mark 8322b, ‘The Overseer’ was in a state of nuclear panic. He’d just let the most valuable subject he’s ever seen with his own two sensors escape like a human’s fart in the wind. Mark was inclined to buck his hard coded programming and send an army after his slipped treasure. Sadly without outside approval, only his scouting troops could be deployed.
Given the complete lack of trail by the soon to be Hydra; Mark was given no choice but to send the day’s information packet up to the military quantum web.
A piece of information so volatile, one wrong ear and the empire will buckle. If the found Hydra body dies before cultivating a foundation of vessels… Only the Emperor himself can save us then.
Mark felt the packet of terabytes of information finish encoding into one of the millions of quantum information bays linked to the base data cluster.
Mark felt his long term strategy core predict a high chance of defeating the Vornithar threat within the next century if the nubile hydra survived.
With crossed finger like wires and strategy cores blasting at full power, Mark sent the packet.
Within minutes, an order from high command raced down into the quantum bays of Mark’s data cluster. Each bay filled with explicit and urgent orders to purge every digital trace of the newborn's survival. Each and every subsequent command from a greater power in the empire’s legions. Before Mark could finish processing or create any full proof data backups, a forced order from an Emperor's Judicon arrived.
A forced shock of electricity flushed Mark’s systems, the emp like wave removed hundreds of terabytes of information from his servers.
“Why are there two holes in the eastern defensive wall? Both turrets are slagged?! Am I under attack?! What’s the date?!”
Mark went into a flurry of panic rechecking and rechecking his sensors for attackers. He found none. He assigned the next twenty hours of data strategy core processing time on figuring out the cause in his lapse of memory.
The cores each errored out one after the other mere minutes after starting processing. Every core began a forced meltdown upon reviewing the last few minutes of mana sensor logs.
Soul wrenching screaming and static filled the halls of the base as billions of electrical and quant-optical circuits fried all at the same time.
Mark’s artificial mind was irreparably crippled by the sudden loss of all of his strategy cores. A dead ai switch information packet was immediately sent up to command.
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A packet of information originating from the Archid system, one of many sentient ritual material cultivation systems in the empire, was sent into the legion quantum network. It was marked as of utmost strategic value by the cultivation base AI. In turn, the packet managed to cut the line and get sent directly to the spiral arm legion avatar.
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Six hour later:
Hugo Smedberg, A force Herald of the highest order, a proud commander of a slice of the Emperor's legions and a strategic asset all on his own. Hugo was a proud man, and currently he was enjoying a prolonged vacation on a paradise planet sleeping with a lover in his bed. He earned such a rare occasion due to his squad’s great feat of killing a wave Vorn that had been terrorizing the essence ocean guard line for months beforehand. It was such a great accomplishment Hugo had been given an offer by one of the emperor’s judicons of a life free of more war. All he would have to do is be the on paper commander and defender of the fastest generating ritual material sector in the empire.
To say the least, Hugo had taken the choice with a shit eating grin on his face. He’d say it hurt to say goodbye to his squadmates but… They were nothing but a bunch of bloodthirsty empire hounds that gave no effort to keep hold of their humanity.
Hugo was pulled out of his reminiscing by Kaja, the curvy pale skinned beauty he’d met at the hundred floor casino in the North pas district. Over the centuries, Hugo had picked up quite the body count. At this point in his long life, all of the one night stands blurred together. The constant presence of copious drugs did not help things.
“Arhh, Where am I?” Kaja blearily opened her eyes, they slowly widened further and further with every glance around the room. Clearly not recognizing anything around her.
She looked over at the hulking mass that was the genetically modified, highly trained, muscle mountain, Hugo. Her eyes widened to their limit.
After her plump lips opened and closed a dozen times, she looked at Hugo with a mix of emotions flashing across her face from angry, to thirsty to scared. A few minutes later she relaxed a tinge and sighed loudly.
“Shit… What’s your name again?.. Actually never mind I got it, it’s Hibby… no Hugo! That’s it. Now where are my clothes? I need to get back home before my hubby starts asking any questions.” Kaja said, getting out of the king sized bed.
“Beautiful, it’s noon. That quote, ‘open’ relationship of yours doesn’t seem very salvageable.” Hugo laughed
“No no, It’s a saturday, my hubby usually is still asleep till one p.m. Ah shit the air cab is estimating a forty minute drive. How did you get me to agree to come out this far?.. This is ridiculous, we're out in the middle of South Gates!” She said freaking out, her eyes looking around at invisible floating screens.
Hugo got out of bed, tossing the blanket off of himself. As he stood, Kaja stared at him blankly, her previous panic turning into awe. After getting a good look at Hugo sober, her annoyance melted like ice in the summer sun. A dense patchwork of crisp dully glowing runic tattoos covered Hugo’s entire back and upper chest in a complex weave. One large rune held president above all others, his legion identification rune in the center of his sternum, one marking him a herald of the emperor’s army.
“You, err….” Kaja stared blankly for a long moment. “Well that’s a first, have never slept with a Herald. Muscle Buns, Did you fly me here?”
“Probably?” Hugo responded with a tilted head. The gesture looked a tad goofy on his hulking seven foot form.
“Probably?” Kaja responded.
“Probably. I’m only recalling flashes of last night after vaping twenty shots of everclear. For all I know I could have princess carried you all the way here, after breaking a hole through one of the Casino windows.” Hugo laughed.
Kaja walked up to him and sensually traced the main circle of his identification rune with her index finger.
“Well big man, once I'm dressed, think you can manage to bring me home? I’m sure you have plenty of experience bringing damsels in distress back home.”
“I’d prefer to carry you skin to skin, but your wish is my command ‘princess’.” Hugo said as a short series of small runes on his shoulders increased in intensity and a small pile of woman’s clothes began floating into the room. The pile then spread out into multiple individual clothing items. A pair of tight black leather pants, a deep v neck sparkling red club shirt, pair of socks and a few panda themed undergarments. The floating garments then each had identical spell circles snap into existence in front of them. Steam began forming within the clothes then as each spell twisted and grew in intensity each piece of clothing was ironed and then folded out on the end of the copper colored bed sheets.
“Oh, my. I’d take you down for round two this very moment if I wasn’t on a deadline, magic man.” Kaja’s voice dripped with appreciation and something more wet.
With a mental flick Hugo sent a friend request over to Kaja on Quant Messenger. The empire standardized faster than light civilian communication network.
“Hah! Bold. I like it. Though don’t you dare try whisking me away one of these days while I'm at home! No matter how much I'd like that.” Kaja joked with a twitching frown on her face.
Kaja quickly got dressed, she looked like a scrumptious snack. But Hugo stopped himself, Don’t want to ruin yet another relationship. It’s like I attract adulterers like flies. I wonder what it is, my face? The title? The runes? The abs? Probably the abs. Let's be honest.
Hugo threw on some boxers and gym shorts.
The two of them stepped out on Hugo’s apartment balcony, it was a gorgeous view of the megacity, you could see for miles since the bulk of the skyscrapers had inscribed rituals to make them nearly transparent from a far enough distance. While it was one thing to feel every moving particle for hundreds of miles in his perception sphere, it was another to see the full color of the city with his own two eyes.
Hugo squinted and then with a wave of his right hand and a series of rhythmic thumps and flashes from his tattoos a low flying spy satellite three hundred miles above was turned into melted red hot scrap.
High command and their sick privacy invasion in the name of universal security. If I ever manage to track down the space weaver runt that keeps putting those damn things up there every goddamn day, I'm going to rip his head off. With my own two hands.
Kaja poked him in the shoulder, as for the last thirty seconds Hugo had been staring straight up with a look of pure annoyance contorting his face.
“Muscle buns, I'm running low on time. You can do your magical jerk off session after I'm gone.”
Hugo sighed and mentally grabbed the two of them, focusing on the runes on his lower back. They both began floating off the platform, a harness of invisible force keeping them each aloft. Kaja squeaked loudly, a lot more tame than the drunken squeal the night before. The events of last night slowly dribbling into Hugo’s addled brain.
Hugo sent them slowly hovering away from the balcony, there was some gawking from onlookers but, these are the sorts of things people on paradise planets see all the time. But not usually in city centers as magi flight permits were a bitch to get. Of course enforcement didn’t try catching you midair but there are a dizzying number of invisible cameras pointed everywhere in the city, and that includes upwards. Cameras so good and blasting out so much ir light they can scan retinas from thousands of meters away. Some sort of invisible air lens bullshit.
My main reason for hating surveillance. In my early years when I was powerful enough to fly places but not high enough rank to get a flight license, every vacation I took, half of my budget went to paying off flying violations. I tried everything, facemask, googles, holographic disguises. I’m pretty sure half of the empire’s cameras have rituals on them because there is no way they’re mundane.
Hugo sent them rocketing upwards above the skyscrapers below, logic runes on his lower back automatically triggering from the wind resistance instantly snapping a floating invisible windshield of force in front of the duo.
After a minute on the verge of a panic attack Kaja looked like she was having the time of her life. Hugo couldn’t help but look at the squirming leather behind.
Stop. Hugo brought himself under control. The hormone reset the army biomancers put him on a few years ago when he started his indefinite vacationing position kept his lebido at concerning levels. Some sort of an apology after siphoning most of it out of him all those years ago as a new force Acolyte.
By the five minute mark the leisurely flight was halfway complete. They were over the bustling business sector, many drones and droids churning in a metallic soup underneath.
It was at this point that a red glowing urgent message seared its way directly into his brain. An emergency message from high command directly aimed towards him.
‘Vanguard grade emergency has occurred in your commanding sector. Report to Arcthor station meeting room 1923a for physical briefing. Immediately.
Catlea Vykopal, Charge Vanguard.’
The world around Hugo slowed down to a crawl. He had no time, if he let a god's damned vanguard waiting for too long his indefinite vacation would come to a very short and bloody end.
Hugo sweeped the surroundings in his sixth sense. The closest skyscraper roof was a hundred meters away. Hugo sent Kaja shooting downwards towards the skyscraper, at a much faster speed than they had been flying before. A look of sheer panic appeared on her face as she saw the skyscraper approaching. She began drastically slowing down as she reached within fifty feet of the ceiling. She touched down with her high heels clacking against the skyscraper’s flat concrete top floor. The windshield dissolved leaving the high altitude winds to buffet her hair.
With another mental flick Hugo sent a message to Kaja over Quant Messenger, ‘So sorry, Extremely urgent emergency. I hope you understand. Every millisecond counts, I unlocked the roof entry hatch behind you. Best of luck. I hope you make it home on time.’
Hugo reinforced his body with large counteracting force fields holding his cells in place as he subjected himself to hundreds of thousands of G’s of acceleration. He broke the sound barrier instantly. His target was the nearest on planet nexus spacial transportation hub. A cloud of plasma quickly appeared around his windshield.
As Hugo was flying he opened his space storage artifact necklace which he wore at all times. He retrieved his military wear and tossed it on midair. Sadly he had too much experience with this exact action.
He neared the front of the nexus, a large bulbous building that looked like a stadium or a gigantic subway entry hall. But it was really just a facade, the real bulk of the structure was underground going for hundreds of stories and spreading out into thousands of programmable transportation docks. A woman essence infused officer tried flagging him down seeing him blasting in at hypersonic speeds but stopped upon Hugo triggering his identification rune, a complex three dimensional computer readable hologram appeared over his head.
He zipped past the entryway, making sure to create force fields in his wake above the crowds to avoid killing anyone with shockwaves. He aimed for the tucked away military sector of the nexus. He tapped into the wireless network and dumped his credentials and request for immediate transport to Arcthor station. He mashed accept on using the dedicated military personnel transport dock.
Hugo leveraged open the elevator doors with his mind and tossed himself down the elevator shaft. An elevator car tried close lining him but luckily it was a two car system and he shifted to the other shaft.
Hugo slammed open the doors on his floor and sped into the transportation dock. He ignored all of the civilians and military grunts on the floor waiting for their transport. Door after heavy door opened up in front of him until he reached the personnel dock he was assigned.
He opened the dock just in time to see the swirling violet particles of space attuned mana dust flecks snapping into place. The whole hundred by a hundred foot square back wall was suddenly removed and replaced with a near exact copy of the massive dock Hugo was curretnly standing in.
A nounification appeared in his quant messenger dashboard, from Kaja, “I’m not going to make it! You son of a bitch! This building has a hundred and fifty emperor damned stories!”
Hugo blasted through the new large portal into the opposite hallway on Arcthor, a smile touching the edges of his lips. The hallway which was usually dead and empty, was now absolutely swarming. There were so many mana fluctuations permeating into the air Hugo’s sixth sense range was cut down to a pitiful three miles. Still enough to see the space station in its entirety.
Hugo blasted down the halls, keeping flush to the flat ceilings, he flew overhead of the rabble speeding towards the meeting room. He couldn’t help but look out the space station windows as he was flying past.
There were an entire two empire armadas floating out there. Dozens of ships the size of small cities that dwarfed the space station its entirety were in sync with the space station’s orbit.
What in the fuck is happening? Did one of the ritual resources reach vanguard while being out of surveillance? No, this is overkill. They would just send a legion vanguard assassination squad if that was the case. This is something much larger. Eldritch breakout? No, the emperor has kept those bastards at bay for centuries now, that is a constant. Avatar gone rogue? No we’d all be dead. Vornithar incursion? No, there’s no other way out of their sector of layer two but the essence ocean portal. Titrax infection? Maybe, those always turn into a clusterfuck.
Hugo’s modified brain eliminated dozens of possibilities by the time he reached the meeting room. The sixteen foot tall sliding stainless steel doors opened way into the meeting room. A round room with high ceilings and customizable hard light projection seats lined a gigantic central round table. The entire room was a complex full spectrum holodeck allowing for over the top briefings. The window curving around the room looked out over the city sized Eclipse Dreadnought warship, its massive bulk framed by the dual blue stars behind it.
Hugo scanned the room, there were a dozen people sitting around the unnecessarily large table. There was one woman standing in the front of the room. She had white hair, stood nearly seven feet tall and had muscles that belonged to a goddess. As her hair swished around small soft sparks of electricity would arc between the ends of the strands, tentacles of solidified charge mana squirmed around the room like eldritch horrors. A slim azure and black, neutronium doped graphene suit stood behind her, a functional Aegis.
As Hugo stood there gawking at Catlea Vykopal for a split second, a voice managed to sneak up on him.
“Hugo! My grumpy eunuch! Oh my, did you already cheat on me a few years into getting your testosterone back?” A sultry and soul scratching female voice accused from behind him.
He turned around to see a black haired buxom woman he immediately recognized. One of his old squad members, Naima Korrigan, a Herold Life weaver, a member of a distant branch of the spear house.
Just fuck my life. I have to see this psychopath again. Naima used familial connections to use essence geyser battlefields as playgrounds and use me as a plaything after the military mandated hormone therapy. The therapy was meant to counteract the cocktail of prescribed steroids. But all it really accomplished was fucking with my psyche and reptilian drives.
To top it off I never actually got my balls cut off… except that one time. She regenerated them immediately though. Hate that label.
His other two male team members flanked the Naima, Kurdin Valentinovich and Lukov Valentinovich, a pair of force heralds, Both psychopaths in their own right. Hugo had only ever seen a smile touch their lips when tearing apart something bloody. May that be a beast, horror or person.
Naima opened her lips to continue egging him on, but was cut off. A pulse of electricity made the holodeck shutter around them. An off gassing of a mana tentacle was tinged with anger and demand for obedience which felt as if someone was squeezing your brain stem with their bare hands.
“Everyone sit down! Waste one more second of mine and I'll have your diving rights revoked for the next decade.” Catlea said in a cold tone, the obvious origin for the mana outburst.
That threat put a shiver down Hugo’s spine, he immediately disengaged from the group of three familiar psychopaths and sat his ass down into the closest empty transparent chair within a fraction of a second.
After the group of three walked into the room fully the door slammed behind them.
“Alright everyone is here, I’ll make this simple. We don’t know much. But the spear’s patriarch’s first son has been identified in system Archid in the Drucyn essence geyser. We don’t know how he got there. But he is a fledgling hydra, the vessel we identified is only at the rank of an acolyte in essence aura. But it is also equipped with half a set of vanguard grade genetic enhancements. The vessel could be one of millions of our new hydra but it seems unlikely given the spear patriarch’s incessant searching for the last thousand years. Either the baby hydra has just appeared out of thin air and is building his power now, or this is one of many and we will be chasing smoke.”
“There are a hundred and fifty known connections to other geysers in Drucyn. Time is of the essence. I'll be sending this group here to go secure all known exits in the geyser near the base. I myself will be going with heat Vangaurd Kozar Yurievich to scan the immediate area. You have no choice but to cooperate in this matter. Here is captured footage of the vessel, and here is its mana readout report.” Catlea finished as a dark haired man with fresh blood covering his body appeared as a hologram ontop of the table. A long numerical report on the man’s mana reading. As well as a video clip of him getting shot by multiple inch caliber anti material cannon rounds with minimal effect. Hugo quickly saved all files from the holodeck onto his local brain implant.
“Alright, space herold Xin will be transferring us now to the essence geyser portal. Find that runt, for the emperor.” Catlea commanded.
A wave of purple glowing powder filled the room with floating violet runes within and suddenly Hugo was no longer standing in the space station meeting hall. Hugo was now standing shoulder to shoulder with everyone else in the strike team. They were surrounded by a bustling crowd of medieval looking adventurers and weird looking races of people.
The road was breathtaking to take in, the orange tinged dual star system bathed the magical medieval street in breathtaking gold. There were couples dining under neon green awnings. A baker's shop ran by a curvaceous elf. A boxing rink where two stone golems were duking it out. Crowds of people betting on the golem winner, Hugo could see in his sixth sense two force acolytes controlling the golems from underneath the stage.
Hugo sighed, imagining what could have been if history wasn’t so rotten. He looked at the baker with longing eyes before his face hardened.
Nothing but descendants of degenerates that abandoned the empire in its most dire time of need. They are nothing more than fuel for rituals now.
A message appeared in a group chat in his military quant messenger account. It was from Catlea.
‘I will be going in with Kozar. The rest of you spread out and seal off as many exits as you can, a few hundred meters of stone around every exit shall suffice. Valentinovich brothers neutralize the nearby locals here and then join the sealing efforts. Any off-planet local interference will be handled by the warships above. Twins, save the heads, You know why. I’ll mark this incident down as a small scale reaping.’
The twin duo of Valentinovich brothers both suddenly had vile grins plastered across their faces. Their military jackets immediately shredded to pieces from their tattooed spell catalysts beginning to blast at full volume.
Hundreds of thousands of white traces began blasting out of the duo, the traces clicked together in the air hundreds of meters above into a gigantic dome. The dome was finished in construction within three seconds. The one and a half mile wide spell circle dome began building in light intensity, soft vibrations began emanating from the interlocked force traces.
The dome began spitting out impossibly thin lines of subatomically thin electron clouds of pure force held together by mana. The lines sliced through everything like air, even stone. The first dozen lines of force magic swept across the base of the dome. Windows shattered and tarps fluttered to the ground. After a momentary pause, all of the local architecture gave out, pristine brick walls toppling over, logs of wood cleanly sliced in half. Another momentary pause later, for all the eye could see, starting from the east side, the head of every single creature within the mile and a half sphere lost their heads. There was no fanfare, no pop, no crackle, just another silent wave of force magic and tens of thousands were headless.
The ocean of bodies were as varied as they came, eight foot blue giants, elves, cat like beasts and bird people falling from the skies.
Each and every head began floating into the air just above the building line. With a synchronized clap from the psychopathic twins a shockwave blasted out of the sphere, every remnant of buildings and headless corpses exploded into chunks of viscera, stone and wood.
The once magical metropolitan main thoroughfare was now a bloody and foul smelling wasteland. Hugo looked sadly over to the pile of rubble that used to be the bakery and imagined that elf’s ‘face’ one more time.
Hugo shivered, before looking away from the gruesome sight. He wanted to leave before the ocean of blood wreaked havoc on his nose, like it had thousands of times before. He walked into the essence geyser, a portal framed by holographic wood like runes of dragons burning forests the size of mountain ranges.
I’ve never seen bigger smiles on those two psychopaths.
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Luis Miguel Contador, or better known as Luis the wave vanguard mercenary was one of the only three wave weavers in the entire empire. The bell curve distribution of aspects for humanity makes it unbelievably unlikely for any human to become a wave or mind weaver.
He was currently gathering juicy information on the baby hydra from the comfort of an Eclipse Dreadnought janitorial closet. With just enough squinting and headache he could see through the strengthened Arcthor anti perception rituals using his sixth sense. He was recreating the visual information on a small diorama in front of a depth enabled camera in the closet. A bright white-yellow spell showed a perfect miniature scale animation of the conference room.
The baby hydra finally showed its scaly face. That rotted adoptive father of mine, will not hesitate to leverage the entire family fortune to get his hands on this monster.
Luis looked down at the mana infused, ragged scars criss crossing his body, which refused to disappear no matter the biomancy and frowned.
Let's not let that happen. Time to catch myself a multi headed dragon.
The son of the spear deserves better than to be abused by my father.
Even so many years later I can’t scrape the remnants of that memory from my mind.
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Fifty years earlier (Luis Miguel Contador):
Luis was fifteen years old, the slightest brown and scrawny. He was currently walking back from one of the military prep schools on this manufacturing planet. The constant smog and poisoned food stopped him from gaining any tan or body mass. But looking at some of his fat peers he swore ate the same as him, he had to admit the second one might be a bit of genetics at play.
He walked down the street, the oppressive yet familiar view of the gigantic spire reaching up into the heavens blocked his view of the setting triple suns above. The damned hundred thousand story monstrosity broaching over the horizon was a mixture of a city and space elevator at the center. One of many on this dirty planet, Killinar. Clouds of yellow smog constantly exited the factories at the base of the spire and smaller puffs came from factories and trainyards on the surface.
Luis had a small coughing fit as a whiff of yellow smoke broached his nose. He was nearing his parent’s apartment complex. His mom worked as a nurse aid at a local infirmary and his dad was a grunt worker at one of the thousands of essence beast butchering plants nearby. His dad made decent money, his mom a quarter that much. A lot of arguments came out of financial troubles, but Luis knew his parents were in it together till the bitter end.
Luis so desperately wanted another sibling, but as the years rolled by, that fantasy dribbled and boiled away like leaking acid from a factory pipe. Just the idea of being able to have someone his age he could truly rely on or better yet keep as a rival would be amazing. But his parents and his home were in no shape to take on such a burden.
The filthy streets were just at home with the rundown rust covered apartment building Luis was walking into. The hum of ancient radiators and water pipes undertone his walk. Mr. Harris, the drunk who lived on the lobby floor and drank on the lobby couch tried greeting him, but he just went into a coughing fit like usual from the outside smog rushing in.
“Lu - cough - is! Cough! Fu - cough!” Mr. Harris got out before he collapsed on the couch coughing the whole way.
Luis ignored the deadbeat and walked into the ratty elevator at the back of the lobby. It was positively falling apart, an actual hole in the thick steel elevator ceiling was caused by a loose essence beast rat a few years back.
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Luis heard a static muffled ding as the elevator reached his floor, floor 32. It was a bit of a hike to his family’s apartment as each apartment floor was gigantic. It is one of the tens of thousands of city block sized apartments to house the rabble around the spire.
A solid three minutes of speed walking later, Luis reached the apartment, room 32899. The door to the apartment was noticeably cleaner to the rest of the floor. His mom decided if they were stuck in such a shitty apartment, putting a little bit of elbow grease would go a long way.
He opened the door to see a relatively clean and extremely familiar two bedroom apartment. His dad, Marco, was leaning back on the couch and absently listening to some music over the living room speakers while rolling a dimly glowing purple crystal between his fingers which fuzzed around the corners.
Another one of those nights, Luis sighed internally.
“Dad, Is Mom not back yet? I thought she only worked till three on fridays?” Luis asked more worried for his mother than the impending pain that stone will cause him tonight.
Marco sighed. “Luis, she’s fine. The recent geyser surge has everyone this week at the hospital working overtime. Next week it’s gonna be my turn with all of the beast corpses pouring into the facilities.”
“Think they’ll hand out bonuses this time around?” Luis asked.
“They better. There’s so many plants nearby, if they don’t I'll leave immediately. But I might do so anyway after next week as I think Jason the prick is catching onto my essence stone nicks.” Marco responded with a squinted look creasing his eyes.
“Yeah, you have been grabbing those more frequently recently. What gives? You know if I awaken as an acolyte I won’t be able to finish school? Is it really that much better of an option? I’m doing so well!” Luis tried the same old argument for the thousandth time.
“Luis, I know it’s scary. But it’s the only way to really move forwards. Becoming a mundane paper pusher won’t get you very far at all. I just need you to trust me, okay? I promise you this is the path to a better future.” Marco said with a somber face. The music in the room shut off at the same time.
“Dinner is in the fridge, heat it up. And grab the stone, do your homework and head to bed. I still can’t believe you’ve managed to sign up for afterschool activities till the late afternoon. Do you even do your homework?” Marco asked, rehashing a question asked a hundred times before.
“Yes I do. And yeah, I'll get right to it. Thanks dad.” Luis said, grabbing the fuzzy edged stone. It felt oddly soft and ethereal to the hands. Almost as if with a hard enough squeeze the stone would melt into the skin. Which it would.
This is gonna suck as usual. These condensed crystals always cause aches and pains for the uninitiated. Luis thought grimly, looking at the stone.
Luis quickly heated up the chicken alfredo in the fridge in the microwave. Made his way to his messy room and tossed his book bag to the side of his desk and set his food on top of it. He quickly scarfed down the meal, the cheese perfectly melted and chicken surprisingly soft. Though everything had odd and weird after tastes to it from all of the contamination in this garbage city’s food supply lines. He speedran his homework, half of it already done from mooching answers off his friends after school.
By the time he was done, it was time for bed, yet his mom was still not back yet. It worried him. But it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. She had worked impromptu twenty four hour shifts in the past. ‘Dad definitely sent her a message already, so I'm sure she’s okay.’
After getting ready for bed, and laying down, Luis took the purple essence crystal in his right palm and began to squeeze. The crystal was hard at first, but as more pressure was applied it began to deform and then started to dissolve into his hand painlessly.
Each and every time Luis used one of these accused stones, it got easier. But it was never easy. A dozen seconds later and after about seventy percent of the stone dissolved through his skin, is when the pain started. It began as a dull throb.
At the eighty percent mark, the dull throb evolved into a full arm bruise like sensation. No visible damage. But at the ninety percent mark is when jolting and shooting pains began to fire from his right hand all the way up to his heart. The jolts spread from his heart to the rest of his body quickly. At this point Luis was groaning and sweating. The chicken alfredo wanted to crawl up his esophagus but he held it down firm.
As the last of the stone entered his palm, the jolting & shocking pains reached a climax. A climax so widespread the pain reached his head. His lips felt on fire, his head in a tumble drier, and his teeth just out of an industrial sander. As the ultimate pulse of pain rocked his body, Luis fainted collapsing backwards into his bed.
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Luis got rudely woken up from his sickly nap by a firm knocking on the apartment door.
Definitely not mom, she has a key and doesn’t knock like a bear. Common courtesy round these parts to announce yourself after knocking. Or else.
Luis jolted out of bed, and made his way out of his room. His dad was already up and at it, a niatech energy gun in left hand which he crammed into the back of his pajama sweatpants.
“Luis, hide in your room. Be ready with this. Just in case.” Marco said, as he tossed Luis an ancient, dirt cheap and loaded semi-auto shotgun.
“Okay, be careful.” Luis responded, his arms still shaking slightly from the symptoms of the crystal and fear.
Luis stood back against the wall next to his bedroom door. Shotgun loaded, and safety off just in case.
Luis’s dad yelled out from behind the door, “Who’s there? Definitely no deliveries this late at night.”
A robotic voice came through the door, “Miss Contador, tell your husband you’re here. This doesn’t need to be a big ordeal.”
Luis heard familiar far away sobbing, most definitely from his mother. A look of disgust, fear and anger twisted across Marco’s face.
Marco grabbed his energy handgun from his pants, turned off the safety and in a jerking motion swung open the door.
“Oh my god, Lucia!.. Who the fuck are yo-!” Marco screamed but was cut off as he was launched like a ragdoll across the apartment into the sofa at, at least forty miles an hour. Luis hears something crack. He didn’t know if it was his dad or the couch.
The robotic voice, much louder now, no door muffling it, blasted through the apartment. “Marco Illegsias Contador, you have been found guilty of twelve counts of first degree murder, two homicides, financial fraud, theft and robbery. Under the authority of the Planetary Governor’s Adeptus and the Glass Serpent Guild you have been ordained the punishment of familial execution, effective immediately.”
Luis spotted a nine foot hulking figure walz into the room. A muscular man covered in military garb the symbol of the Governor’s enforcement force proudly inlaid on the back of his thick gray jacket. A metal, blood red mask, covered in glowing vermilion swirls covered the man’s face and presumably changed his voice. No enforcement droid is that massive.
An explosion rocked though the apartment as the thick wooden door was blasted apart into a million small splinters that put a thousand small bullet holes all across the living room. Dust clouds and debris spilled into Luis’s bedroom in waves.
Luis heard his mom scream as she was also launched across the room on top of his father. It was a slower speed and without a crack, so Luis was hopeful, and clenching his teeth.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, was the only thing going through Luis’s head as he began to hyperventilate.
Luis calmed his breathing as fast as it rose, and made a rash decision. He’s gonna find me anyway. As long as he’s not a weaver… This could work. Please emperor don’t let this fail.
Luis rounded the corner, his finger on the trigger, shotgun raised and poised to fire. He didn’t hesitate, the man didn’t react to his quick shuffle around the corner, Luis fired. The force of the eight gauge shotgun rocked his right scrawny shoulder, causing a familiar firearm bruise he was used to from school.
At the instant the gun went off, Luis could see a white glow appear from under the man’s jacket blasting up the enforcer’s neck.
The small lead balls that should have sent the man tumbling to the ground, had stopped mid air on some sort of soft barrier around the man before dropping to the fake plastic tile floor of the apartment with soft taps.
The man turned in Luis’s direction, the white glow increasing in intensity from the man’s jacket. A lash of a white mana tentacle whipped across the room at supersonic speeds with no noise or fanfare whatsoever. It softly wrapped around Luis’s neck like an anaconda which slowly engulfed his body before five bright white runes spawned around his torso. Suddenly, Luis couldn’t move his limbs whatsoever no matter how much he strained, it was as if the air itself all around him had hardened into thick steel.
The red masked man spoke once again in the modulated tone, although one a lot less filled with grandeur this time around. “You must be the runt, Luis…” The man paused and walked over chest to chest to Luis. Although with the height different it was more like head to lower ribcage.
The man’s mask flashed with red light from the swirled inlays. Luis could see the corners of a gigantic grin starting to spread around the mask as well.
“I was very personally disappointed when I saw your father Luis, do you know why?” The man said, in no longer a robotic tone, but a slightly modulated one, very low in pitch. A voice that portrayed the man’s glee at seeing Luis for some reason.
Luis, “I have-- no idea?” Luis responded then proceeded to cough and pull the shotgun trigger at the same time, aimed at the man's right thigh as they were too close together to maneuver the barrel.
The shotgun went off, but the same horseshit weaver spell interfered and turned the pellets of death into very still lead beads. The beads lightly fell in between the two men’s feet.
“Bad idea, little monster.” The man responded before with a backhand faster than Luis could even react to sent him tumbling across back into his bedroom, shotgun immediately flying out of his hands.
Luis heard the man keep talking as he was attempting to recover from the instant concussion from the blow, “Luis, Luis, Luis. I was so disappointed seeing your father because I thought even with all of those crystals, he wasn’t a single step closer to initiating. A dud, a dullard, a waste. But no, I can feel it, he gave them all to you. Every single one. You are on the verge of initiating your nervous system. A soon to be acolyte.”
The man walked closer and crouched over the bleeding and bruised Luis. “But Luis, how many seeker and acolyte grade crystals have you absorbed? Five? No. Ten? Not even close. Do you know how many?”
Luis’s brain, addled as it was, was completely unable to respond to the goading question.
“Your father, if we even managed to catch everything on camera, fed you at least a hundred crystals. If he sold those all, he could have bought this entire apartment block and lived in luxury. But no, he was determined for you to reach initiation.”
A large magenta flash of light filled Luis’s bedroom as his dad emptied two shots of his energy handgun into the back of the enforcer.
As the retina searing cleared, Luis felt a deep sense of despair as the two shots of pure multi million degree plasma just dissipated into the air warming the room before ever even touching the enforcer. An ominous gust of wind began filling the room as the two apartment windows finally shattered. With a flash of white light from the enforcer, hundred mile an hour winds quickly filled the room with cold lung irritating yellow smog.
Luis felt the steel air constraints around him begin to constrict and bend like a mechanized suit, forcing Luis to move. The fake steel dug deep into his skin, creating a dizzying canvas of criss crossing gashes. The air constraints picked him up, making him float a foot off the ground before landing on his feet next to the enforcer. Luis’s arms dripped blood.
“Luis, how many acolyte grade, much less seeker grade crystals, do you think it takes for a human force acolyte to initiate?” The man said completely unfazed by the smog rushing into the high rise apartment window.
Luis was surprisingly not in a coughing fit like his parents, the air restraints filtered the smog. “I don’t fucking know! A hundred?”
The man scoffed loudly in a modulated and distorted way through the mask. “There’d be no weavers running around this slum planet if that was the case. No, it takes one to two acolyte crystals maximum. Do you know what that means for you? Luis?”
“Fuck you man! Why are there even family execution laws on the books?” Luis tried changing the subject.
The man walked up to him and back handed him once again, much softer this time. Although it was a whole lot more painful this time around. The constraints did not budge, his neck and cheek took every ounce of force. His neck felt on the verge of twisting in a fatalistic manner. A thin gash from the steel rope like constraint around his neck dug in painfully.
“Little monster, I'm not done yet.” He leaned in, mask two inches from Luis’s bleeding face and smiled widely.
“Luis, it means you are either a legendary mind weaver or wave weaver. Two aspects so almost incompatible with humanity, it takes hundreds of stones to initiate. And Luis, you are right on the edge. I can feel it. All you need is a little bit of stress to finally connect those essence reserves and cultivate your first trace.” The man said creepily.
“Once that happens you will be my little shining star, a perfect little monster for me to finally complete my growing family of creatures.” The man smiled, taking off the mask to show a rugged white pale face covered in intricate spell runes, glowing golden eyes, light absorbing scales running down the front of his neck and dirty blond hair in a buzz cut. The face was contorted in an insane smile, one Luis couldn’t even process the degeneracy of.
An ocean of fractal like white mana tentacles exploded out of the now unmasked maniac enforcer flooding the room, the apartment hallway, then the entire building. All within less than a tenth of a second.
Two sets of torso spells appeared around Mitch’s parents, a shimmer of air appeared around them. Mitch could see his mom beginning to wake up from the throw, and his dad desperately straining to move.
“I’ll come clean with you Contador family. I’m not a governor enforcer or a hired goon of the GSG guild…” A look of relief, fear and confusion crossed Marco’s face as well as Luis’s.
“I’m someone much much worse.” The man’s jacket and undershirt exploded into strands of extremely thin kevlar as eye piercing glowing white runes revealed themselves across the man’s back and torso glowing with the power of sheer force mana.
Luis looked out the shattered window and saw a skyscraper sized spell circle appear on their side of the rundown titanic highrise apartment. The spell circle was filled with only a few repeating traces. A very powerful, wide and simple spell.
Luis felt the steel air restraints around him spread to cover every square inch of his body. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t hear.
As Luis tried to squirm and not panic about being suffocated so easily. The spell circle outside built with visible intensity before detonating in a flash of white light.
A plasma filled shockwave of pure force thrashed the hundred story, block wide apartment building made of nearly all steel and bullet proof glass. The building, crumpled, folded in half and began to melt as it was torn from its thick concrete foundation in an instant.
The building then crumpled into a ball and began floating. Luis looking up could see residents of higher floors beginning to fall out of the apartment charred and bloodied. The soon to be corpses, fell hundreds of feet.
The now roughly spherical high rise was then blasted across the city at hundreds of miles an hour by another white spell circle, directly into… the district where Luis’s school was.
The crumpled five hundred foot across steel ball exploded into sharp steel and glass shrapnel, and threw up millions of tons of dirt, human bodies, steel and concrete across the city as it obliterated Luis’s school district.
It was at this point Luis was already beginning to tear up, then suddenly sound and air returned to his ears and lungs. Luis gasped and drops of tears began to fall from his face seeing so many of his neighbors, like his best friend Jane get instantly charred.
Sounds of screaming, crying, debris falling and fires roaring all reached Luis’s ears all at the same time. The view from far above and distant horrific noises tempted Luis to mentally distance himself from the carnage. But he couldn’t, the sheer number of people he just lost, was too high for his brain to even comprehend.
Luis, jerked his eyes upward and realized that his parents were floating in the air unharmed just like he was.
It was at this point Luis didn’t feel anger boiling up but just an ocean of hopelessness in the face of this monstrous psychopath.
Do the lives of ants not matter to giants? Do giants need to follow the laws of ants? I feel like I've seen that mask before in a military textbook, does he not have to follow the law even then?
The blond haired man put back on his mask which he had been holding in his left hand the entire time. A modulated and annoyed voice came out of the mask.
“Luis, was that not enough? Hrmm… What to do… Ah, it must feel too detached, I've had this happen before with Jae-hyun. I guess you need something a tad more intimate.”
Luis felt the constraints begin to move him over to his father who was also floating on the same horizontal plane as him.
His dad looked him in the eyes and whispered, “Don’t worry Luis, we’ll make it through this. We always do, just look at me and don’t look down. Nothing we can do about it now.”
Luis tried to lean in for a hug with his father as they were so close, but the restraints prevented it. Instead the restaurants around his torso and right arm moved forwards to grab Marco’s left wrist. Luis couldn’t feel his father’s wrist but could feel the heat from it as the restraints were only a quarter inch thick. Luis tried to strain but all that accomplished was cutting more painful gashes into his skin.
Suddenly Luis’s entire right arm jerked in a clockwise twisting motion, pulled along with the ride with the constraints. His father began screaming. Luis looked down at his father’s wrist and saw nothing but a bloody stump with his father’s hand not held a quarter inch aloft from his own palm.
“Oh my god, dad!” Luis tried dropping the hand, but he was not in control of this mutilation despite being so close.
“Luis, trigger and we’ll be done with this. Your birth parents can go on and live happy lives in this slum world and you can move onto greater things with me. Every minute that goes by you’ll be tearing off another appendage from your father. Once he dies… guess who’s next.”
“You motherfucker! Just toss me into a geyser, have me fight for my life against monsters. This bloodshed is completely unneeded!” Luis screeched over his father’s screaming.
“Luis, and potentially lose my invaluable new investment opportunity before it even begins to develop? I think not!” The man laughed in a distorted voice.
The restraints immediately lunged Luis’s arms forward and tore off his father’s left forearm, the minute wait rule completely unfollowed.
It was at this point Luis was fully hyperventilating, sweating all over, the blood of his father slowly dripped through the now suddenly porous constraints onto his skin. The warm, thick liquid made him shiver in disgust and fear.
“Minute three.” The distorted voice said, not ten seconds later.
Luis was yanked forwards as the restraints around his right hand, effortlessly tore off the upper left arm of his father, leaving nothing but a viscera covered, tendon riddled, bloody exposed shoulder socket. Luis could see the socket cartilage jiggle on top of the torn off upper arm bone. His dad had stopped screaming, he was now unconscious from the pain and blood loss.
I can’t lose them too. Anything but them. What should I do? What can I do? Whatever it takes.
But what the fuck is that? Luis thought, tears streaming down his face, thick blood dribbling down his forearms, adrenaline pumping through his veins.
“Let's speed this up.” The distorted voice whispered behind him, as if the devil himself whispered in his ear.
Mitch’s right hand was slowly being pulled up to his father’s neck.
No, NO! I refuse. Not like this! My parents deserve better than this.
Luis looked up to his mother who was shaking, crying and sobbing within her restraints as she looked on at Marco and Luis.
The restraints around Luis’s right hand tightened around his father’s neck. Luis could see finger imprints beginning to quickly form around his father’s neck.
No!
The restraints squeezed down like a hydraulic press around his fathers throat. The skin ripped first, blood started flowing. His father awoke and stared at him with bloodshot panicked eyes.
God no! I’d do whatever it takes. Just give me an option, emperor!
The finger constraints stopped the blood flow to his father’s brain; the carotid arteries immediately collapsed under the supernatural pressure.
“Enforcer please, whoever you are. Just please I beg you. Don’t do this.” Luis spoke quickly grasping at straws for any way to save his father.
His father’s face was now a concerning blue, and the fingers were beginning to close in further and further. Until… Mitch heard a crunch as his father’s trachea was squished beyond repair. A few seconds later the entire inside of Marco’s throat was sitting right above the palm of his right hand. His father’s eyes went glassy and the blood gushed down Luis’s forearm. The blood half his father’s, the other half from Luis’s forearm gashes attempting to resist the restraints.
Luis was hyperventilating so hard he wasn’t getting any oxygen anymore. His head felt dizzy and his brain felt slow. His lungs on fire. His right hand wet.
“Time for mommy! Give her a hug!” The distorted, manic voice said from behind him.
As Luis floated closer and closer to his shivering and shaking mother, something broke inside him. A constellation of bright stars appeared in his mind's eye. Each star is connected by deep lines of gold. Each star a blinding white, One holding the memories of him running away from a rabid essence beast, another him slipping his mind into fantasy, another memories of science class covering the concept of stasis used in technology today, another of learning quantum tunneling online, these disjointed memories all connected together. Each memory seemed to fall under a blanket of obfuscation.
Luis clawed at those memories, he managed to pull back the veil using white glowing plasma coating his mental grasp. His feeling of reality began fading away. The world began dissolving into a bunch of swirling transparent particles around him as he pulled harder on those traces between stars.
The world suddenly came into focus, as if being captured by a camera. Everything frozen in time, a perfect diorama of perception for a hundred meters stretched out around him. He could see the entire frozen world. It was overwhelming and disgusting. His brain couldn’t handle all of the gore and grief he was witnessing all at the same time. He tried crying but even he was frozen.
He could see the carnage below, the tens of thousands of bodies buried under rubble. The ribs broken, the skulls cracked, and the arteries punctured.
The particles around him, swirling in invisible patterns, permeated every single plank space around him. There were an infinite number of them. Out of curiosity he focused on a single particle hundreds of meters below next to a crying injured young couple trying to determine what it was and suddenly his world shifted. Luis appeared in a brilliant and burning flash of light next to the couple, he gave the duo horrible burns across their bodies. They started to scream in pain within a half second of his brilliant appearance, before they could, they were turned into red mush by the red masked maniac landing on top of them at hypersonic speeds. The couple liquified and splashed across the street as disjoint bone shards, chunks of flesh and spilt blood.
“Finally! And you’re a wave mage! A genius at that! A fledgling spell at first initiation! You’ll be coming with me Luis. A life of luxury, adventure and indulgence awaits!” The man said with a smile and a slow hand motion calling him forwards.
Luis felt a very odd sensation as if he was being offered a metaphysical option by the wave aspected mana flowing through his veins. It felt as if the mana was trying to pull him in a direction. Luis couldn’t place a finger on the familiar vector but decided to go with the flow and accept the choice the mana offered. What could go wrong, die in a fireball? Kill more people? Accidentally fry his mother…
On second thought, Can I still cancel this? Of course not.
Suddenly the world shifted around Luis, the world around him seemed to fizz and distort. Then suddenly he was standing in the frozen world thirty meters in the air looking at his shaken up mother, his bloody right arm extended.
Am I back in the past? What the hell.
Luis suddenly had an old memory crop to the surface from a class lecture about frontline threats, the Vornithar were mainly wave and space weavers. They were attacking from the second layer. They were so feared and hard to kill since the powerful wave mages can teleport and try a hundred thousand different futures every second and pick the best one to commit to. But Luis could already feel his essence reserves being at around eighty percent after that one single attempt.
I have four more of those in me. Let's try our best. And let's not flash fry anyone this time.
Let's think this through, I can only move about a hundred meters in a single attempt as that’s the farthest I can see particles right now. Will the maniac kill my mother immediately if I were to vanish underground this instant. Or wound the bastard to find me immediately or do both?
Seems like my best shot, let's see if I can learn something.
Luis picked a thick steel walled freight railway twenty meters underground to vanish into. He appeared in a flash of light, which for an instant lit up the tunnel. Luis dropped a foot onto the gravel on the side of the rails.
Luis touched his sixth sense immediately and watched the man’s reaction. The maniac smiled wide under the mask and muttered “finally”. Luis was able to read his lips even from here.
The man let his mother fall almost to the ground before slowly stopping her fall before she was another bloody smear on the pavement. She stood in the bloody rubble very confused and cried her heart out. She seemed on the verge of fainting. Her hispanic brown skin seemed oddly pale and her usually fluffy black hair was matted down with sweat.
The maniac within a few seconds, summoned a white spell circle right above Luis and a twenty meter and ten meter diameter tube of solid stone, cabling, pipes and three meters of steel blasted directly upwards at supersonic speed. The man is obviously uncaring about the consequences of its landing in a bustling cityscape.
He ended up in front of Luis slower this time. In the couple scenario the man appeared in front of him in milliseconds, it took around five whole seconds this time around.
Fuck.
Luis shivered thinking of this man blowing away the entire apartment highrise casually and decided to use his remaining essence for a last ditch escape attempt and hopefully the man wouldn’t kill him.
“Well Luis my little monster, you are about to become one of my elite employees! I mean creatures! Cough I mean family members! Get ready for a life of luxury, blood and adventure! There’s only a lot of paperwork to fill out, a series of genetic enhancements to go through, a five year weaver academy to trudge through, and a two year military service requirement and finally you will be joining your new brothers and sisters in building a new empire under my name!”
“Psychopath, I don’t even know who you are!” Luis screamed, tears streaming down his face looking down at his now clean hand and then down at… his completely naked body covered in cauterized gashes.
The man took off his mask, revealing the same handsome and manic face. A face forever plastered in a psychotic smile. The chains of small runes fell from both of his eyes. They began to glow in the familiar searing white as he responded.
“Luis, I’m the strongest avatar candidate, Force vanguard of the empire’s legions, Silas Voss. Candidate to become the next patriarch of a weapon family. Soon I will stand brighter than the spear on the frontlines, a cosmic mace shattering the empire’s enemies into unrecognizable shards! You should feel honored to soon be one of the spikes on the family mace.”
Luis was grabbed by mana restraints and catapulted out of the hole. The restraints managed to clamp down on his mana as well, his perception sphere snuffed out, his star traces now dull.
Dad… I'm so sorry. Mom… I’ll find you no matter how long it takes.
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Fifty years later:
Silas Voss, the current patriarch of the mace family was currently relaxing in a luxurious great hall of one of the many family estates. A hall so completely covered in layers of holodecks that every time an event was held a completely different outrageous theme was used to spice up the gathering. This time around it was replacing the hall with a gigantic glass fish bowl with shadowy leviathans swimming about outside the bowl. A sight familiar to many of the powerful divers here that have partaken in any of the local aquatic geysers. The fun part was that every six minutes or so a smaller holographic reptilian creature would jump out of the fishbowl walls and try to knock over your drinks.
To say the least it was an entertaining night. The hard light hologram creatures were programmed to only go after the many weaver guests, so there were spell circles spawned left and right as drugged up weavers tried to dodge fake aquatic monstrosities.
Silas for the last seven years since his golden boy, Luis escaped had been focused on gathering enough excess of familial wealth to capture the lad. But the problem was to capture a vanguard wave weaver, some exotic methods would need to be used. Methods so extreme, permission directly from an emperor judicon were required and entire planets needed to be rigged as traps for the lost mace spike.
My sweet little monster grew up too fast. That damned academy must’ve put such vile things in his head for him to imagine abandoning Silas Voss was a good idea.
Silias sensed his fourth wife trying to sneak up on him as he relaxed at the head of the main dining table. Clara was a beautiful woman, a real balm for the eyes. Silias just wished she had the talent to back up the looks. If that were the case she would have easily been his first choice. But she was a mere herold and lacked the skill and foundation to break through to vanguard. Soul traces were easy to gain, extremely difficult to lose. Clara’s disjointed traces looked like a tangled mess of bed hair instead of a well groomed weave needed for progression. It’s a miracle she made it as far as she had.
Clara slid a cold hand down the front of his vest. She whispered in his ear, “Sil, let's have some alone time before a brat causes trouble again.”
Silas summoned a hard air spell in her pants which created a rod like force field. There was no particular reason for the action, but it did elicit an energetic outburst from Clara’s lips.
“That is a magnificent idea.” Silas stood up swinging Clara into his arms like a damsel in distress. Not a single inkling of shame appeared on her face. This had long ago become a regular occurrence.
Silas panned the great hall as he maneuvered between drunken guests. He spotted his first and second wife, Alma and Kira chatting at a far away table. Alma scowled in his direction seeing him walk out with Clara in his arms and Kira winked and waved him on.
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After an interesting bedroom session, Silas relaxed in the oversized bed, he stared up into gold and silver chains hanging off the topboards. Clara was fast asleep, and Silas was contemplating going for another drink. Events like these were the only moments he let himself fully indulge in heat mana infused liquors. The damned things were nearly entirely ethanol and the heat mana was weaved to diffuse the poison faster into the bloodstream, giving the substance more staying power before being processed by overactive weaver and modded livers.
Silas levitated himself out of bed, usually he was a hardass about not wasting a single mote of essence but such rules also relaxed during these events.
At this point in the night Silias could no longer remember what this party was even for anymore… Wait
Ah that’s right, it’s our celebration for hitting our neutron star harvesting goals this year. The sheer number of layer two beasts which try to make those unimaginable wastelands their home really makes it difficult to reach production targets. Where's the man of the hour? Jae-hyun? The kid gathered most of the family’s hoard by himself. What did he want again?... I can’t remember. I’m sure he’ll remind me.
Silias shook the thoughts of work out of his mind, and decided he had better things to do like having a drink with Alma and Kira before the night came to a close.
Well night was more of a turn of phrase, the event had already been going for five standard days. Serious Weaver parties always ended up like this, a week of debauchery at the minimum. Only the rare few like Clara ever went to sleep. Sleep was a luxury rarely provided to weavers on the battlefield, most had gotten used to it as standard.
Silias arrived in the main hall, he watched Alma and Kira have a heated conversation regarding Maria, Alma’s crazy daughter. Something about how one woman should not be holding off the Charikan threat by herself. How the legions should be ashamed and how she won’t get nearly enough out of it.
Silias just smiled and sat down at the table. He did have a horse in this race, but talking with these two would do nothing. He was the one to get Maria the empire’s best duelist fighting for her life in a charcoal dust covered Charikan hive world.
Alma turned to him with a vile expression on her tanned face. “Silias, what are you smiling about! Maria is wasting her time, potential and your money on this unhinged crusade of hers.” Alma said in an even tone gone of the bubbly drunkenness afforded moments before, the ethanol was burned from her system instantly.
“Has Maria told you why she’s stayed for so long? Even when knowing there is no end to the battle against that plague?” Silias prodded. He needed to know how far he could push it.
“Of course not! You think she has enough brainpower to be killing millions and answer her mother’s messages. Of course not! The youth nowadays are completely incapable of multitasking.” Alma huffed theatrically.
“I have a decent idea behind her motivations. She began her crusade after we had a conversation at the sheer similarities between the Charikan hive world structures and the abilities of the Emperor himself and the Hydra. The qualities of a hivemind biomancer are found in spades in the Charikan core worlds. They are both capable of distributing spell costs, holding an unimaginable number of traces and sharing consciousness over hundreds of thousands of vessels. I may have suggested she would have a better chance against an emperor vessel if she practiced against the Charikan.” Silias said slowly.
Alma’s mouth dropped open, “You didn’t! She’s going to be there for the next millennia! You know how she is. She will not stop until she can consume the entire spell casting capacity of a hiveworld…”
If she actually succeeds, we’ll have a new avatar contender in the family. A thousand year stream of annoyance from Alma is well worth it.
“Well I think it’s for the…” Silias was saying before getting cut off by a top priority urgent debrief quant messenger nounification.
Silias’s brain read the message in a femtosecond, processed it in the next, and began rising to cloud nine by the third.
THEY FOUND THE BABY HYDRA?! They started an operation already without me. It’s run by a few vanguards including Catlea. Twenty five neutron star cores will probably be enough to buy the operation out from the emperor. I know he cares a lot about the hydra himself, but the kid? I think I can convince him for twenty five…. But, he knows it’ll give me too much leverage… Access to a judicon hivemind? On second thought I might need to sell a few family members to afford what he might quote me… Well we’ll wait and see, Who knows, it is a hydra, so giving a whole legion Cohort the slip isn’t off the books. Well either way, failing to get operational rights, I'll end up abandoning my post if I can’t get leave and drag Maria with me. She has the best hivemind experience in the family and can sense interdimensional essence fluctuations. I just need to wait for the twerp to go into hiding, snatch him up and toss him into a layer two family outpost to avoid any emperor questioning using Jae-hyun as a porter.
Silias’s mental sprint ended, he came to a plan conclusion within the second. He continued where he left off.
“Best, she comes with me on a family trip to really get some daughter, father bonding for once. I’ll be bringing Jae-hyun as well.” Silias said through a bright smile.
Alma shot him with an extremely suspicious look, whilst Kira gave him a deadpan stare, which silently screamed, ‘are you serious right now?’.
Always easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I’m sure they’ll understand. As long as an emperor vessel doesn’t get involved, I'm positive stealing the twerp will be easy.
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Six hours earlier:
In the depths of a sixteen planet system, not a solar system but a planetary system built around a black hole’s accretion disk, a quantum information bay was filled with a report.
The consciousness permeating the sixteen planets worth of optical-quantum computers smiled. The first thought the consciousness had within the Zeptosecond of information processing was, Finally he showed up, some bait to get the Hydra back. The second was, I wonder what my daughter will think of him.
Now what vessel to send? As always, they’re all busy. I’ll just kill the Incar population, they’ve done nothing but cause solar system spanning problems. That’ll free up an avatar vessel in about two weeks time.
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A human shaped mountain, skin the shade of stone, awoke from its slumber in the Gallaic mountain range of planet Wamic. The mountains shattered and the ground rumbled in anticipation as the incomprehensibly large figure stood from its slumber.
Green opaque gas began flowing from its calves from pours the size of sewer grates. The gas held the most vile ocean of pathogens and neurotoxins. The organic death cloud began blanketing the mountainous landscape.
The most notable species in the area were the Incars, a cervid type race. Deer like facial features, purple skin, horns meters across, bipedal, opposable thumbs. The cloud of miasma quickly spread over the terrain.
The Incar had cities built into the mountains, and massive surface cities made of essence infused wood. The blue tinted wood glowed in panic as the root network was filled with communication signals of death and destruction as massive swaths of enchanted forest not miles away were scoured of all life. The massive titan appeared over the horizon, its walk speed up over time. It slowly adjusted its course until it's footfalls were pointed towards the nearest Incar city.
By the time the thumping feet of the titan reached the city walls, the overcity and undercity had already been filled with the deadly miasma. Millions of Incar layed twitching, foaming at the mouth from the wide variety of neurotoxins and genetically modified rabies viruses swept through the city. Families cried over the bodies of their children, before they too came to the same fate. Nothing was spared, the only sound that was heard in the now silent metropolitan was the slow rhythmic thumps of the god titan marching to the next city.
An aura of green in the shape of an infinite fractal appeared around the titan. It cast a spell on its back and its march accelerated into a physics defying jog.
Wamic was never the same again and the Gallaic mountain range was nothing but a miles wide rock field for millions of years to come.
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Arlien, a seeker charge weaver, had been stationed to watch this reaper outpost for his current one month deployment. The last twenty days had been boring and uneventful just a rare few flying constructs abducting low grade essence beasts. Nothing to worry about, until Arlien sensed the aura of a rare Acolyte class beast nearing his perch an hour ago. Acolyte beasts were a dime a dozen in a geyser but this one was different. It was a True Steel lion cub. The beasts were famous for their pelt’s durability and essence conductivity.
Arlien was tempted to abandon his post to hunt down the cub, damn the consequences until he realized the cub was dashing directly towards his location. He triggered his perception spell at that moment, a full light spectrum scanning spell which allowed Arlien to scout through solid stone if he so wished. To his surprise, he saw the eager true steel cub chasing an essence lacking human through the woods.
Why in the gods' names is there a human in the coalition? The reaper bases have been unmanned for centuries? Are they building up for a new sequence of killings? I need to watch where this goes.
After the cub was obliterated by the reaper base construct defenses the human was brought inside.
An hour later, the human had come out of the base in a blaze of plasma. The multiple bursts of pure electromagnetic energy from the ungodly explosive devices nearly blinded Arlien with his use of his spell not normalizing the light amplitude.
Arlien after nursing his eyes back to health with biomancer created ointments caught the tail end of the human running away from reaper base flying constructs then disappearing into a cave in the cliffside.
Why is it running away? Are there factions of humans beyond the empire? Is it an empire criminal? Is this a precursor to another series of reapings?
Arlien watched with fascination as the oddly strong mundane human encountered a seeker class essence beast, a temperance urcine. The human could not be more unlucky. The fight was entertaining, and funny as the human was battered around by the urcine. It was a fun watch up until the human threw another plasma device which promptly blinded Arlien once again.
ARGHH! It burns!
After another heavy round of ointment Arlien watched in horror as the mortal human ate pound after pound of seeker beast meat like a starving wolf tearing at a deer carcass.
He’s going to explode, one cannot intake that much essence and survive as a mere mortal.
The human over the next hour ate and slept near the beast corpse. Reaper base constructs were buzzing all around the ravine. To Arlien’s fascination, the human became a fledgling acolyte in its sleep.
Managed to cultivate a trace while unconscious. A monster that is.
After awaking the human quickly went out of Arlien’s magic perception range through the tunnels.
My report today is going to trigger an emergency investigation isn’t it? It’s just a single mundane human, what could possibly come of this?